The 7 Best Inclusive Recruitment Practices

Diverse workforces have been shown to be more innovative, more productive, and consistently financially outperform their less inclusive rivals. As a result, 70% of businesses say diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a priority and that they are highly focused on improving D&I within their organizations particularly through inclusive recruitment practices. So why are so many company D&I efforts stalling or making little progress?

As much as we would like to be completely unbiased and inclusive, we are hampered by our own internal perceptions. These can then bleed into the internal recruitment processes of our organization, holding us back from achieving diversity and inclusion. However, most companies can achieve their D&I goals with a little adjustment to their recruitment approach, potentially some outside support, and education on inclusive recruitment practices and strategies and how to embed them into your processes. We have seven inclusive recruitment strategies for you to consider:

Inclusive Recruitment Strategies for Diverse Hiring

1. Use Inclusive Language

Take some time to examine the language used in both your internal and external recruitment communications. This includes job descriptions, your career website, and internal onboarding processes. Subtle cues and gendered language can creep into job descriptions. For example, words like competitive, leader, or driven are implicitly masculine whereas support, responsible, and share are feminine. Using these words in your job ads can signal to applicants who does and does not belong in your organization.

2. Consider Accessibility

Only 4% of businesses consider disability as part of their diversity and inclusion efforts. Ensuring your application process is accessible to all candidates will make your business more inclusive and open to applicants with disabilities. Accessibility can include ensuring text on your careers website, social posts, and the company website is readable by text-to-speech readers, this includes providing image alt text. You can also consider your use of color. Your application process should be accessible on different devices and include intuitive and accessible forms.

3. Seek Diverse Talent Pools

Are you putting your job advert in front of diverse audiences? Look beyond your comfort zone when it comes to advertising your role. Big job boards, newspaper ads, and LinkedIn have huge audiences but are those audiences made up of applicants you want to attract? Consider placing your ad on smaller job boards designed to appeal to different groups, such as iHispano or Pink Jobs. Attend career fairs in diverse areas or use social networks such as Instagram or TikTok to appeal to different age groups.

4. Build Inclusion into Your Employer Branding

Inclusion should be a key part of your employer brand and brand strategy. 52% of potential candidates scrutinize your website and social media before applying to a role so it’s important to foster a sense of belonging and inclusion through employer branding in these areas. You can use testimonials from current employees, and videos that showcase your workplace culture and how employees with diverse backgrounds experience working at your organization. Video is a great medium for this.

5. Standardize Your Recruitment Process

Ensure you offer a standardized application and interview process for all candidates.
Try to make sure all candidates are asked the same questions and are assessed on job-relevant skills and experience. You should also seek to use a diverse panel of interviewers. This can showcase your company’s diversity and help you get a more well-rounded view of each candidate.

6. Use Data and Technology to Help You

Technology offers plenty of tools and solutions for your inclusive recruitment toolkit that can support inclusion and diversity in the hiring process. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) often have built-in functions to screen resumes and can be used to collect data on your recruitment process. There are also free online tools you can use to screen job descriptions for biased language. One thing to be aware of when using technology, however, is algorithm bias. While it might seem that technology offers a truly unbiased solution, unconscious biases can still creep in based on who developed the technology, who uses it, and how they are used.

7. Overcome Bias with a Recruiter

Using a third-party recruiter can have many advantages when it comes to improving inclusion in your hiring process. Not only do they have experience accessing diverse talent pools, but they can also look over your entire recruitment process with an outside perspective, identifying areas of unconscious bias that may have been overlooked. Recruiters can also help you access and navigate the latest tools and technology to boost your diverse hiring quickly and cost-effectively.

Building a diverse and inclusive recruitment strategy from the ground up can be overwhelming but with these strategies in your toolkit, you’ll be able to quickly move in the right direction.

The Pierpoint Inclusive Recruitment Checklist

You can use this quick inclusive recruitment checklist to ensure your recruitment process is as inclusive as possible:

• Remove biased language from internal and external communications
• Provide training on unconscious bias to hiring teams
• Post vacancies in multiple locations
• Use blind screening to shortlist resumes
• Showcase your diversity and inclusion in your employer branding
• Develop a standard list of interview questions
• Use a diverse interviewing panel

If you are looking to build diversity and inclusion into every level of your business, then your inclusive recruitment practices are a great place to start. As a minority-owned certified business, we have unique insight into what it takes for organizations to achieve unbiased talent representation and to recruit underrepresented talent.

Access global teams using powerful technologies and diversity recruitment strategies to incorporate inclusion efforts within your organization to help you build a high-performance team. Speak to one of our solution designers today to discuss your hiring needs.